I’ve always been quite cynical about making New Year’s resolutions, as I know all too well that most of us break them pretty quickly.
This year, however, I’ve made a personal commitment to improving some aspects of my personal life. The most obvious one is my health. When I lived in Milan I walked a lot and I probably ate a lot better. Sure, I wasn’t exactly watching every calorie, but when it’s so easy to get your hands on good quality fresh fruit and vegetables etc., it’s hard not to eat reasonably well without even trying.
These days I live in a country that has embraced the concept of the breakfast roll!
I don’t walk much and spend most of my day in front of a computer screen.
End result is that I’ve been putting on weight for the last few years and it’s simply got to stop.
I’ll never be one of those rakishly thin or superfit people. I should, however, be a lot slimmer than I currently am and let’s face it – the choice of tshirts in XXXL isn’t exactly stellar!
So this week I started a new diet and general regime. Since I’m a bit of a geek I’ll be blogging about my experiences and my progress (or complete lack of it), though I won’t be doing it here. If you’re bored you can read about my efforts to switch to a better diet and drop a few kilos over here.
So far I’ve chosen a diet from Tesco’s online dieting service and my kitchen is currently packed full of fresh vegetables and fruit. (On a sidenote, this means that I’ll really have to spend a couple of hours later today re-organising the fridge and cupboards, as the current chaos is too much even for me).
One of the biggest challenges will be maintaining a good diet when I’m travelling. I honestly can’t see how I’ll be able to stick religiously to the Tesco diet when I’m “on the road”. Breakfasts in most of the hotels I stay in won’t be a problem, as they all offer good healthy options that slobs like me usually avoid.
But what about lunch and dinner? This is going to be an interesting challenge.
So farewell breakfast rolls!
My new year resolution http://t.co/q8JJ5You
Best of luck with the diet 🙂
I saw the tescos diet before but what put me off was I’d have to pay for it. I’ve been trying to lose 10 – 12 kilos current down 4 ish but that’s mainly because I walk a bit more. One of the hardest things to do is to cook for yourself especially when you work for yourself so to speak I’ve been doing it a few years.
So I’d recommend making up double / triple portions and freezing one if you’re the kind of person that can do that. Simply means on the lazy nights you can just nuke an actual healthy meal in the microwave rather than throwing a god knows what ready meal in the oven. Throw on a bit of rice / pasta (whole grain of course) and bobs your uncle 🙂
As for the eating when travelling … we eat out a bit here maybe the option is to not have a starter and a dessert and that bottle of wine (I know it’s tricky when others are … Val while she was pregnant couldn’t have most of the salads / cured meats / other stuff) so I always felt bad eating them. You also tend to feel like a bit of a cheap bastard when you do that even if it is for your health but ah well 🙂
As I said best of luck the diet is a tricky thing to do but when the weather picks up maybe try a walk to work once a week or go to a shop that bit further away by foot when you need to buy something.
James
One of the things I like about the option that I picked is that it doesn’t require lots of cooking and the recipes are pretty much idiot proof 🙂
Michele
Best of luck with the new year resolution! I’m determined to get out for a walk every day, rain or shine 🙂
Best of luck with it Michele ! Getting fit, in shape and healthier are indeed slow, long processes, but once you get there it will make all the difference. My goal for this year is to loose a further 6-8kgs, the strategy goes something like : no beer during the week, more fresh fruit & veg, and a feck load of gym & exercising. Also learning about portion size is important. The 4-hour work body is worth checking out too.
Michele,
That’s fantastic news and wish you the best of luck with it. I could most likely do with making grater effort myself, sometimes it is just too easy make the wrong choices.
I’m not sure you are aware but I’m part of trackandtrail.ie and if we could do anything to help kick start your 2012 in an adventurous way just let me know.
Thanks everyone for the kind and supportive words. I’ve been blogging about my experiences and hope to continue doing so over on http://www.fat.ie
Michele